Boston University/Lata Medical Research Foundation and Indira Gandhi Government Medical Center Global Network for Women's Children's Health Research Unit

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Project Summary/Abstract The Global Network (GN) Research Unit (RU) of Boston University and the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College (IGGMC)/Lata Medical Research Foundation (LMRF) in Nagpur, India are applying to the re- competition of NICHD’s Global Network of Women and Children’s Health Research to continue their participation in GN research mission. Since the Nagpur-based RU in the eastern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra has neonatal and infant mortality rates that are higher than overall rates in India, there is an important need to improve health outcomes of mothers and their infants in the RU catchment area. The RU has extensive experience in leading and conducting international multicenter collaborative clinical trials and implementation science research dedicated to generating evidence on the best ways to improve maternal and child health in its population in need. Additional strengths of the RU include its ability to recruit >10,000 pregnant women/year into GN studies with > 99% retention rates, and mentoring of junior investigators. The goals of the Nagpur RU over the next five years are twofold. The first goal is to continue to participate in multicenter, high impact, cost-effective, large scale clinical studies in populations of women and children that have the highest burden of death and disability globally. The second goal is to augment the mentoring of junior researchers to improve their research capacity and publication records and to support their ability to successfully compete for grants to study important public health interventions. The specific aims of the RU are to: (1) develop strategies to continue the growth and development of the Nagpur RU and to sustain the research infrastructure that supports the design and conduct of public health research in the Nagpur academic institutions; (2) strengthen research focused on the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in pregnancy and early childhood in the GN and in the Nagpur area; (3) provide support to the GN to continue to identify and address gaps in maternal and child research. The Nagpur RU proposes to achieve their goals and specific aims by continuing to collaborate with the GN in conducting scientifically justified and rigorously designed common protocols targeting key gaps in knowledge, relating to improving health outcomes in mothers and their infants in resource-limited settings. The Nagpur RU will continue to contribute scientific expertise to the GN, particularly in areas of specific strength in the Nagpur RU, including pediatrics, neonatology, infectious diseases, (childhood pneumonia/neonatal sepsis/diarrhea), environmental exposures, particularly household air pollution, nutrition/malnutrition, obstetrics and testing of novel mHealth interventions for point-of-care diagnosis of obstetric and pediatric morbidity and complications.